Debian-installer report (i386, translations, logics...)
(french speaking people, some translation-related stuff here and
there. Please read if you're interested in d-i translation)
Hi folks,
This mail is an incomplete report of my tests of debian-installer on
my system.
This test was merely for me a very first approach of [d-i] in order to
have a first idea of the new process, how it runs and so on....
Another goal was to have a first check of the *french* translation of
d-i and see how the whole beast looks like when it is supposed to
speak french.
Technically speaking, the test was done on a VMWare virtual machine on
my own system. So :
-CPU : i386
-Memory : 96Mb
-video : usual VMWare emulation, accelaration disabled (otherwise, all
display are incredibly slooooow.....without acc. they are only slow.. :-))
-hard disk : virtual 1Gb SCSI disk
-CD-ROM : virtual IDE CD-ROM pointing to the latest published ISO
image of the netinst sarge disk as of Oct 9th ;
-rw-rw-r-- 1 bubulle vmware 120422400 2003-10-09 00:16 sarge-i386-netinst.iso
-Floppy : none
-Network : bridged interface on my usual interface. This interface is
usually detected as AMDNet network interface. Sometimes disabled,
sometimes enabled
-mouse : probably useless but Intellipoint PS/2
-keyboard : french layout
No real strange conditions there, so if you're main interest in on d-i
tests on strange hardware owned by only one person in the world, this
report is not for you.
OK, now for the report. I will sort this module by module.....This is
INCOMPLETE as I didn't test all d-i modules. I'm not sure of all
module exact names, so I guess you'll see what I mean.
Some stuff could probably be filed as bugs against the offending
modules. I may of course do it....or feel free to do it if you want.
(writing this after writing all that follows : I probably should file
bugs... :-))
=====================================================================
MAINMENU :
Several items are unstranslated. This is probably due to fuzzy strings
for the french translation of modules as they are included in
unstable. Would be better to test with all CVS versions.
Is a CVS snapshot netinst image generated somewhere ?
=====================================================================
LANGUAGECHOOSER :
The language order seems to be random. Hungarian first, then
australian english, indian english, USA english, UK english,
hebrew....
French on the second page, I don't like this.. :-)
The order is in fact alphabetical based on the "Choose this" string
translation. So, if one currently wants to see his/her own language
listed first, just add "AAA" before.... :-)
I would suggest adopting a policy for the language order. Of course,
determining the "most important" languages is a very delicate thing as
everyone would like to have his own language listed on the first page.
Finding a realistic criterion would be Good, maybe. Either the most
used languages all over the world, or the languages for which Debian
is most translated (french would become first, maybe.. :-))), or
something based on developer number (german would then come
first...)...or whatever else....
After....it has to be implemented in languagechooser which is probably
not easy.. :-)
Anyways, something has to be done : I have full respect for my friends
from the beautiful Iceland island...but I'd rather see portuguese,
finnish, swedish, chinese, norwegian on the first page.
By the way, congrats for the UTF-8 stuff : russian, chinese and all
others letters perfectly show up
Pour les francophones :
"Sélectionnez ceci pour continuer en français" : bof. Encore une fois,
je n'aime pas et n'aimerai jamais "sélectionner" pour "choisir".
=====================================================================
NETCFG
I made my first test with no interface working as my laptop was
disconnected with eth0 down (and then VMWare having NO network
interface).
The very first screen then after languagechoose is a screen about
"DHCP network configuration".
It says that no interface was detected and that "Go back to Configure
network hardware" or somehting like this (it was translated).
As I, at this point, never went to the main menu, this looked quite strange.
When an interface was detected, I tried DHCP configuration
The french translation of this screen is not really good, IMHO :
"Donnez le nom de machine pour le système" (court)
-->Nom d'hôte de ce système would be better (no verb, this is a title)
On devrait plutôt utiliser "hôte" plutôt que "machine", peut-être
"Network will be configured now" screen :
"Le réseau va etre configuré maintenant"
"Cela va prendre du temps mais pas plus d'une minute ou deux".
This sounds strange to me, why "one minute or two" and not 5, 10...or
30 seconds. In fact, it took 1'39" on my system... :-)
I would propose a more general formulation like
"Cette opération n'est pas instantanée mais rarement très longue" in
french and "This is not immediate but usually not very long" in my bad
english.
Moreover, having something else than an empty screen would be nice
there. Maybe keeping the screen which warns about the "not immediate"
operation...
----------------------------------------------------------------
DISKPART
Main screen in french :
"Veuillez choisir le disque que vous souhaitez partitionner" (title)
"Veuillez choisir l'un de ces disque pour y créer..."
Finish (last choice) is not translated
We should probably change the french translation as it is obviously
repetitive.
After the cfdisk operations, ne screen is not erased, so the debconf
screen is displayed "over" the last cfdisk screen. This may be a
display glitch on my system, however.
cfdisk is unfortunately untrasnlated. This leads to some english stuff
in a full-french thing. Bad.
I though that cfdisk had some translation. Am I wrong ?
----------------------------------------------------------------
CHOOSEMIRROR
French translation :
Au lieu de "Utiliser un miroir depuis quel pays?" mettre "Pays du miroir à utiliser"
Remplacer "saisissez" par "indiquez"
Mettre plutôt "Choix de la distribution" en court ou pas de titre du
tout! Pour l'instant, il y a
"Choisissez la distribution à installer" (titre) quivi de
"Veuillez choisir..."
The country names are unstranslated. Is this specific to french or is
the corresponding "Choices" list not marked for translation ?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
KBDCHOOSER
Keyboard names are unstranslated
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
GENERAL STUFF
There seems to be a logic error somewhere. As I sometimes had no
network during my tests, I had a failure for the "Release" file
download after choosemirror.
This failure then triggers an error screen. Fine. Unfortunately, this
screen then always shows up before one comes back to the main menu,
even when coming from another module. Quite boring.. :-)
Some modules seem to use "db_title" from debconf for setting up menu
titles. This is probably not a good idea as this may not be translated
yet (I intent to file a BR for this against debconf if making this
translatable appears to be feasible)
For instance the "choosemirror" screens all have a "Choose mirror"
title, which obviously looks strange when stuff below is translated.
--
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